


companions in misery

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [172]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Descent into...the Maedhros dissipation arc, F/M, Gen, Seven Deadly Sins, city life, schooldays, title from Doctor Faustus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:55:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22063654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Maedhros encounters many opponents to virtue. Some, he loves.
Relationships: Fingon | Findekáno & Maedhros | Maitimo, Finwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fëanor | Curufinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë, Maedhros | Maitimo & Original Male Character(s), Maedhros | Maitimo/Original Female Character(s)
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [172]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 18
Kudos: 30





	1. Pride

_“The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.”_

_― Soren A. Kierkegaard_

Nerdanel thought it gave him no twinge of fatherly feeling, to depart the grimy crush of New York City knowing that his two oldest sons—his first fruits—remained therein. Such ignorance was a womanly trait, and in itself, was no real slight to women: they felt so openly and softly as to leave no room for a stoic mien.

Feanor had not yet convinced her to think differently, but he had reasoned with her.

Now, he attended to his last errand in the city: overseeing the introduction of Maedhros and his schoolmaster. Maedhros and Maglor both were to attend the same school, but Feanor remembered too well and too ill his own experiences in the open classroom, beleaguered by the follies of lesser, schoolboy minds.

Maglor was dreamy enough as to isolate himself, and his natural talent for the musical arts would set him apart from the rowdy urchins who buttoned themselves into clean collars and thought themselves masters of their worlds. No, Feanor was not—and was rarely ever—worried overmuch for Maglor.

Through no fault of his own, it was Maedhros who presented more complicated circumstances.

He was sweet-tempered. Strong of both body and mind—Feanor trusted few men of his acquaintance more—but inclined to be fond of those weaker than himself. Then, too, Maedhros bore responsibilities for his family greater than those that Maglor did. Maglor need only acquit himself well; Maedhros must keep his eyes and ears open, balancing his desire to construct firm walls of prosperity with the need to watch for evil at every obliging crevice.

At present, he was fidgeting.

“Nelyafinwe,” said Feanor, low and serious. It straightened the boy like an arrow: his slim, well-formed figure remarkably manly in new tailoring of dark grey. He had combed his hair down over his brow; Feanor, finding the hallway empty, reached out to smooth it back.

“Perhaps your mother was right,” he said, in a kindlier tone, “And you should have let her cut it a little before departing.”

“Oh,” Maedhros stuttered, before settling his nerves with admirable quickness, “I did not—”

“Never mind. Now, Master Webb is the foremost scholar in—at least, so your grandfather says. He shall tend to the majority of your schooling, applying to other teachers and tutors as needed.”

Maedhros nodded. The door at the end of the long hall opened, and there was no more time for conversation between father and son. Feanor checked his impulse to guide the boy’s shoulder as they walked. It was, in any event, rather awkward to reach.

Maedhros had grown so tall.

Master Webb was a distinguished man, thin and wholly grey where he had hair remaining. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles pinched on the end of his nose.

They are not of particularly fine make.

“Feanor,” he said, “If I may be so bold as to address you thus—your father and I are old friends. And this must be Maedhros. My, but you are a handsome lad.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Maedhros, extending his hand and sketching a neat little bow of his head and shoulders. Feanor saw a bandage adorning one finger, but was not ashamed: his sons were craftsmen, at heart, as he was, and Maedhros had spent some of his last days in the smithy.

After all appropriate greetings were exchanged, Master Webb bade them be seated. “From your letter, sir,” he said, “I believe that you desire special arrangements for your eldest.”

Feanor bristled at the phrasing. “It was my understanding,” he said, with less warmth than he had previously spoken, “That my _requirements_ were already agreed upon.”

“You wish your eldest—Maedhros, beg pardon—to be schooled by several masters, apart from the other boys his age.”

“Except for physical education, yes.” Feanor relented a little. “And I suppose it would be sensible for him to take his exams with the other pupils, would it not?”

Master Webb sighed through his nose. “Indeed it would.”

“That is acceptable.”

Maedhros turned his new high hat in his hands. He did not slouch; he was not Celegorm.

“We will do our best, sir, but I must confess—we do not have endless resources. In the study of chemistry and biology, for example…”

“Yours is the finest institution of its kind in the state, is it not?”

“In the northeast!”

“Then I trust your capacity for ingenuity extends farther than the rigidity of your habits.”

Maedhros, very quietly, said, “Sir, I do not mind—”

“Be silent, if you please.” Feanor knew that Maedhros, through nothing worse than his own pure intentions, would be sure to assuage an old man’s fear-driven efficiencies. “Master Webb, my sons will ornament your school’s reputation. On that, you have my word. Be so good as to accept my naturally superior understanding of their needs and inclinations.”

Master Webb opened his mouth and shut it again. Then he said, very carefully, “Are Maedhros’s…needs…unusual?”

Feanor once again forbore from responding to the insult with the ire it deserved. “His capacity is unique, rather,” he replied. “He will flourish extraordinarily, given the chance to learn directly from focused teachers.”

Master Webb’s sigh was one of defeat, this time. “Very well,” he said. “Unless, of course, the prospective scholar objects?”

Maedhros shook his head quickly. “Not in the least, sir.”

“You will not be lonely?”

“I have family in the city.”

“Your grandfather, of course. And your brother.” Master Webb adjusted his spectacle. “Very well. Fencing and swimming and the other sports shall introduce you to your fellows, and I will consult with my colleagues as to—”

“A proper allocation of experts and expertise.” Feanor rose. “Excellent, Master Webb. My father erred not in speaking highly of you.”

He waited to congratulate Maedhros until they were alone in the hall together.

“This,” Feanor said, letting both hands rest on his son’s shoulders, “Shall be the making of you.”


	2. Gluttony

_“Fill with mingled cream and amber,_

_I will drain that glass again._

_Such hilarious visions clamber_

_Through the chamber of my brain —_

_Quaintest thoughts — queerest fancies_

_Come to life and fade away;_

_What care I how time advances?_

_I am drinking ale today.”_

_― Edgar Allan Poe_

In his reply to Finarfin’s letter, announcing that he was wed and intending to remain so, Finwe had forbidden him from returning home.

It was most unlike him. Indis had rarely seen her husband in a temper, unless he quarreled with his eldest son. His, and dead Miriel’s. 

He had forgiven Finarfin grandly, humbly, as was much more his wont, a few months later—and harmony had reigned thereafter. Finarfin had never shown any grief over the matter to father or mother; had refused, even, to complain. But nor had he capitulated. Finarfin’s will was unlike Finwe’s and unlike Indis’s. It was calm, but it was strong.

 _You are like that_ , he told her once. Her gold and silver son, with wise eyes in a young face.

 _I am not,_ she said. She thought of this for no particular reason, when Feanor’s sons came to her house.

They were good, solemn, well-behaved boys. She had never been able to hate them; to be sure, she had not tried to. She had looked upon them as round, beautiful babies and had craved the touch of their satin skin.

Instead of such a privilege, she had most often stood with her net-gloved hands resting against the folds of her skirt, while Feanor clung to his father like a cocklebur, jealously guarding each babe in turn.

Indis could not hate Feanor either. He did not want her to touch his children, but he sent them to her. She knew it was not out of kindness; she knew he resented her presence there just as he always had.

“Welcome,” she said, to tall Maedhros and nervous Maglor.

Maedhros looked like the portrait of Miriel in Finwe’s desk, if that portrait were colored and softened and brought to life. All the angles and danger were there.

Indis folded her hands against her skirt. She had nothing to say to them, but she did try.

They kept to their quarters—two bedrooms and a little parlor—in the evenings, unless Finwe invited them to play backgammon after dinner, or kept them conversing at the table after the plates were cleared away. Indis had readied herself for the return of young voices, and was instead met with uncanny silence.

Fingolfin’s brood was much livelier, despite their bookish ways; Finarfin’s children were positively rowdy if sufficiently motivated. Indis loved them all. If Maedhros and Maglor would only speak with her more openly—

But all she could do was watch. Watch, and learn what coaxed out Maglor’s smile, what little tells Maedhros revealed when he was tired. She thought that Maglor, who might have been a little pale and petulant, was content enough in his new home.

Maedhros was all paper-doll politeness. At first his charm might have convinced anyone, but it was a mother’s province to know when anyone’s son was not eating, scarcely sleeping, and looking pinched with worry at the corners of his mouth.

If he was homesick, he would sooner confide in Maglor than her. But if he was unhappy at school—Finwe _had_ said something about an unusual arrangement—

“Would you speak to him, husband?” she asked one night, as she braided her hair for sleep.

Finwe had not yet undressed past his coat; he was annotating a book in midair, doubtless spotting his shirtfront with flying specks of ink. The book was for Feanor; always for Feanor.

“Speak?”

“To Maedhros. I believe he is unhappy.”

Finwe assured her that he was not. Feanor’s boy—Feanor’s red-gold, charming boy— _he_ could not be afflicted by the woes of the common world. And so it seemed that her plea would be forgotten altogether.

But one evening, in crisp January, she heard laughter from Finwe’s study. Maglor was making up a missed music lesson in the library, and Maedhros was in his own room, at his books.

Or so she thought. She padded across the oval rugs (some from Persia itself, for Finwe spared no expense for the decoration of their home) between sitting room and study, but she had not far to go: the door was opening.

“There, my lad,” Finwe boomed. “Good cheer, is it not?”

“Very much so, Grandfather. Thank you.”

They were both beaming. Beaming and flushed—Finwe’s finest red wines left their print on the cheeks of those who indulged in them.

“Husband?” Indis asked, scarcely believing her eyes.

“Maedhros can do an impression of Fingolfin that would make you doubt your own eyes,” Finwe chortled, clapping the boy on the shoulder.

Maedhros, instead of looking abashed, covered his mouth with one hand, and hiccoughed.

Indis said, as calmly as she could, “I think he ought to go to bed, Finwe. It is past eleven o’clock.”

“So it is…so it is. Listen to your grandmama, my boy.”

She had not had a drop of spirits, but the room seemed to tilt around her. Were they not all hungry, here, for something more dangerous than heady wine? She waited for Maedhros to defy Finwe, on the one count that he always must, but he did not. He stepped forward, stumbled, and caught himself on the newel post.

“Goodnight,” he said, fluttering his eyelashes and smiling like a sleepy child— _like her children, when they were young_ —and then he tripped lightly up the stairs, having regained his footing.

Feanor had taught all his sons to dance.

“Finwe,” said Indis, when he was gone. “Pray what is the reasoning behind your filling him up on that stuff?”

“I did not fill him up on it. He took a great liking to it. Any boy his age would.”

“He is only fifteen.”

“Feanor was so much more—so much more of a _challenge_ at that age.” Finwe shook his head. “I love the boy more than anything, but his son…his son is so eager to please. There is a real sweetness about him, that strikes me to the heart. Do not begrudge him a little wine, Indis. He did exactly as you hoped. He told me a little, of his discomfort. The other boys have been teasing him. Boys do, you know, when they are not yet acquainted.”

“What did you advise?” She asked it faintly. She was not Finarfin; she was not, she feared, both calm _and_ strong.

Finwe raked a hand through his soft silver hair. Age had turned it so, not madness. He was not his faery wife of old; not dead Miriel.

No tears rose to Indis’s eyes.

“I told him to make friends,” Finwe said. “To be generous to all. Forgiving and forgetting, whenever possible. Is that not the guidance you would wish for him? For anyone?”

“It is,” she whispered. Somewhere above them in the house, a door closed.


	3. Envy

_“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”_

_― François Duc de La Rochefoucauld_

Reginald had not found it difficult to hate the newcomer. Maedhros Feanorian was a redheaded Irish brat, for one thing; he was a strange bird, for another. He kept to himself by virtue of some official edict, about which none of his schoolfellows knew a thing. The masters scuttled after him like rats, and they dined with him—or he dined alone.

He kept most of his lessons in the library.

“That’s because he’s brilliant,” Jeremiah Waters said, but what did a Waters know? They were vulgar tradesman, immigrants of less than a decade ago. Waters’ rough low-country accent was still thick. Besides, many more said that Feanorian was dull.

Reginald was from a councilman’s family. He knew no _Feanorians_ , and if he did not know a family—or if his father didn’t—there was nothing else to be said on the score. Red hair was bad enough, but Maedhros Feanorian presented more trouble than that. The girlish lashes, the unreasonable height, the unshakeable calm— _these_ rubbed salt in an already quite sensitive wound. He had a brother, too, who was all the rage of the musical types. Reginald thought his name was something equally unnatural, like Mac-a-lor, but he rarely saw him, except at some of the more well-attended lectures.

There were few opportunities to whittle Feanorian the elder down to size. He sat for exams with the other boys, silently mouthing his Latin phrases and his elaborate equations as he worked. His handwriting was slanted and unbeautiful.

Once, two or three boys had colluded to drop a spider down his collar, or tried to, but it had instead crept up over his shoulder, and he had flicked it away with two fingers and gone back to his writing.

(Thomas Johnstone had said that he saw Feanorian retching in the lavatory, afterwards, but Johnstone was cross-eyed and untrustworthy.)

The only place that Reginald could be certain to meet the redheaded devil was the gymnasium. Feanorian swam and ran races, when he could, or so the other boys averred, but his most common pastime during school sport hours was fencing.

Reginald laid his plan carefully. He told his father—son of an English duke, though they couldn’t speak much of that after the War—that he wanted nothing more than a foil for Christmas, preferably with a French rather than an Italian handle. Reginald had a secret, shameful admiration for the French.

The ring and clatter of studied combat greeted him when at last he trod the long hall on a Thursday afternoon in March, certain that Feanorian should receive his due that day. Late-night consultations in the dormitories—not all the school’s students were privileged enough to have family nearby—had apparently taken up Reginald’s plot with keen interest. Here and there, boys had wagered a dollar.

Reginald had been told as much at breakfast that morning.

He had practiced a good deal, since Christmas. Privately and on his own, so as not to be detected, but he believed he was equal in skill to one as loose-limbed and slim-figured as Maedhros Feanorian.

Reginald had chosen this particular Thursday because, a week before, he had sliced clean through one of the parlor curtains. Dukes’ grandsons were not, alas, above being punished for their crimes; he spent the next few days sitting as gingerly as possible.

When he had ceased smarting, he counted the benefit of his attempts to be sure readiness on the field itself.

His style and aplomb would not go astray _here_.

The students of the school had at first been trained to fight with their heads back, their weight held on the rear leg. Six months ago, at the beginning of Reginald’s _second_ year of fencing and Feanorian’s first, the masters had acquired newfangled wire masks to cover the lower half of the face. As such, the style changed. Standing firmly on both feet, there was a great deal more movement. Parries and ripostes proceeded with greater speed and exchange.

Some people thought this more graceful.

Three long windows ran down one side of the gymnasium, letting in light that shafted like stairways of pale sun. Reginald nodded briefly to Tibbs and Lawrence, two of the boys who were in their last year (and two who had wagered dollars against Feanorian). Feanorian was all the way on the other side of the gymnasium, showing some of the younger boys how to keep their blades from rusting.

 _That_ , of course, was why Reginald hadn’t fought him yet. It seemed like a lucky chance, now, but it had eaten at him before. Feanorian wasn’t interested in _competing_ ; he much preferred to teach.

As if he knew enough!

 _Now, you blackguard_ , thought Reginald, _You shall be shown what a man can really do._

Reginald was fifteen. He didn’t know how old Feanorian was.

Feanorian did not turn around immediately. Reginald had to clear his throat twice. Feanorian looked over his shoulder, then, lifted a single auburn eyebrow, and said, “Beg pardon?”

 _You should._ Reginald pinched his mouth into a frown, before realizing that this would make it difficult to speak.

“I’d like a match.”

Feanorian didn’t hesitate. Didn’t so much as look _afraid_. “Very good,” he said easily. “I’ll ask the masters if we can start directly after exercises.”

Exercises seemed too long to wait, but Reginald had no excuse. He put himself through the usual paces, but he was troubled in every limb. His stomach roiled.

Feanorian’s hair tumbled about his ears. The half-mask made him look, Reginald thought, like an errant beekeeper. His fencing whites were immaculate, and expensive.

Feanorian’s grandfather was rich.

But so was Reginald’s. Reginald shifted in his stiff whites, and wished he could say aloud that they were _equally_ expensive.

“The masters said we were welcome to compete,” Feanorian told him, in a friendly tone. “We ought to have before—I think we’re the same age.”

Reginald bit back a cry of rage, one quite unexpected, and lunged. Feanorian’s eyebrows stayed up, above the mask, but he otherwise showed no surprise.

No one had cried _en garde_. Reginald wondered if the masters would scold them.

The masters did not; they _watched_.

Feanorian fought as if he was dancing. He advanced and retreated, but he never faltered, and he never swayed. Reginald sweated under his collar. He began to think that the match would never be over, or if it ever was, his reputation would end with it.

Feanorian tapped the point of his foil against Reginald’s right breast.

“Ah, ah,” he said softly, from beneath the mask. Through the wire mesh was the glint of a grin. “That’s settled.”

Reginald barely restrained himself from tearing off his mask, dropping his foil, and lunging for the—the _wretch_ with both hands. A cry went up—

“Splendid! A regular Bertrand!”

Feanorian took of his mask, shook out his hair, which was hellishly bright in the sunlight, and bowed. Tibbs and Lawrence came up to speak with him. The rest of the matches proceeded in a sort of fevered daze, or at least, Reginald did.

His foil felt very heavy in his hand.

“Come and eat with us today,” Tibbs cried. He was—he was actually clapping Feanorian on the shoulder. Actually drawing him along, away from the huddle of masters.

“I…” Feanorian protested, his posture uncertain for the first time, but Tibbs would not hear of it.

“It’s no trouble. One meal. There might even be roast beef.”

They were all—going. Reginald stood frozen to the floor. Then the _regular Bertrand_ turned.

“You may join us, Reginald,” Maedhros Feanorian said, with a smile that shone. “If you wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Francis-Joseph Bertrand was a master of the new fencing style that began in the 1830s.


	4. Lust

_“You've got an awfully kissable mouth.”_

_― F. Scott Fitzgerald_

Boredom was the first and longest trouble that Violet knew. She was deadly sick of garden parties at fifteen; hateful towards embroidery long before that. She had had a premonition, when she was no older than eleven, that the greatest joy of her life would be to have the management of a soul—but only someone _else’s_ soul.

Her mother always told her to find a husband.

Not just any husband, Violet thought, would do.

The Tibbs were well-off. Papa was a banker. Mama was fashion-plate-fine lady. Clement went to the finest school in the Northeast which, in Manhattan, was half a mile away. Violet’s governess had once been the finest of _her_ kind, too, but she was getting old.

Thus: boredom. But also, Violet was beginning to realize, _freedom_.

Old Miss Hansom’s eyes were dim.

A husband, and a soul—hard to find when one was shut up each day with a round-framed scrap of linen and a handful of colorful threads. A month ago, Violet might have despaired, but Clement—stupid Clement—had done something useful for once.

On Sunday last, he had brought a schoolmate to dinner. Violet’s mind was full of the schoolmate since. His name was a strange one—Maedhros Feanorian—and he was strange, too, because he was so beautiful. Violet was sixteen, as was he. Clement was a year older, but Maedhros was the taller of the two.

Violet narrowed her eyes at him. She was given to rather savage affections. Since he had combed his hair neatly, she wanted to tear at it.

Clement said he was the talk of the class, having bested Reginald Hurst at a fencing match so grand that the masters themselves stopped to watch.

“Maedhros Feanorian?” Papa asked. “Ah, then your grandfather is Finwe, of the City Council—”

After dinner, and after Maedhros was gone, Papa praised Clement for making such a useful friend.

Clement had smiled, stupid but cunning. Clement was always saying how far he wished to go in life.

Violet bided her time.

He came again for a small soirée, where the boys stood around drinking watered wine and pretending that they were not eager for cards. They only wanted to play if money changed hands. The girls teased them, in hopes of convincing the lot of them that a dance was in order, but as no one had thought to bring a fiddle, and none of the girls wished to sit at the piano, such plans gained no ground.

Maedhros was unfailingly polite. He seemed dependent on the good will of his schoolfellows, and Violet was privately annoyed.

“I do not want your _politeness_ ,” she said, when she had him alone. She had beckoned him into the library, when he was seeking out another glass of the thin wine. He had followed.

Obliging enough, was this Maedhros Feanorian.

“Then what do you want?”

She took him by the hand, and let him to the window seat. It was ringed in deep red curtains. They looked rich beside her hair; or rather her hair looked rich. Violet dropped his hand and drew the curtains around them, so that they had a view of the window seat and the artificially frosted glass.

Then she tilted her chin up at him, and pursed her lips. The effect had looked silly a year ago, but not now that she was full a woman.

“Oh,” Maedhros Feanorian whispered, his eyelashes fluttering very fast. “Oh.” Then he stooped, down from his great height, low enough that she felt the flicker of his breath against her lips.

She shut her eyes, and smiled.

His mouth was dry and warm. The feeling was not an unpleasant one; Violet let him press lightly, moving back and forth a little. He held his breath all the while. That seemed to be all he knew how to do.

 _Foolish, dull boy._ But he _had_ looked as if he had a soul, at one moment or another, and Violet was not finished looking for that soul yet.

She parted her lips to cover his, and nipped at his lower lip. He startled, then went still. She drew back, and this time she did not smile; she grinned.

He was as scarlet as his hair, along the high rise of his cheekbones. “I did not know,” he murmured, not stepping away at all, “That you could—”

“You can.”

His breath quickened. “Very well,” he said. “If you ask it.”

So he was not a dull and lifeless doll after all. Violet said, quite sweetly, “I ask it.”

He leaned down once more. A little fire passed between them; a little heat. His tongue grazed her teeth. She reached up, eager, and pulled his hair with both her fists.

One of his hands settled against her waist. With the other, she heard him draw the curtain more firmly around them.

She could feel the warmth of his palm, but little else. She tugged his head back by a handful of curls.

“You are doing very well, Master Feanorian,” she simpered, “But you must touch me somewhere that half an inch of silk and whalebone does not guard.”

“Ask me,” he said again, straining against her fingers so that he could reach her mouth again. His lips were swollen from her teeth. His pupils swallowed up the grey of his eyes, leaving only a limning of silver.

“Please,” she said, throwing her head back so that her throat—and a fine, milky throat she knew it to be—was open to him. “I ask it.”

He hesitated, his brows drawing together. Then he fitted both hands around her neck, his long fingers brushing the downy curls at her nape until she shivered. His right thumb was pressed to her pulse point; his left was resolute against her chin. He opened her mouth like that, and before he thrust his own against it, he asked, low,

“Was this what you wanted?”

She could only nod, waiting.

He did not smile—he _grinned_.


	5. Greed

_“We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.”_

_― Michel de Montaigne_

The letter arrived by a night courier. It was sealed with black wax and Arthur Simeon snickered nervously to see it. He had been employed as a tutor for only three months, and already, he was summoned?

He tore open the seal, rubbing a few shavings between his fingertips. As he read, his face fell. Here was no summons, indeed, nothing to confirm in the least who it was had engaged his services.

Moreover, there was no directive for a grand course of action. His hopes had been in vain. He was to watch and wait, to tutor the agreed-upon boy only if he could do so without drawing attention to himself. Otherwise, he was to make himself scarce as a mouse.

 _Keep close to the wainscoting, Arthur_ , he told himself. He burned the letter over his small grate and slept ill that night.

He had been instructed, simply, to look for Feanor Feanorian’s son. He had not expected a lad of six feet and growing, with flaming hair and every schoolmaster in his thrall.

Master Simeon, left to his own devices, began to contrive devices beyond those expected of him.

If he could but lure the boy away, keep him somewhere secret—that would bring more than a black-wax seal! That might bring fortune, and secret adulation. It was easy enough to spirit away a single student, but only if one had that student’s trust.

He had been a shy, timid scholar himself, in _his_ schooldays. He had worshiped his masters, even those who offered him only a critical boot to the teeth of his intellect.

Direct access to the Feanorian boy had to be earned. He learned this in his first week, scuttling down the school halls at the solemn clang of the grand bell.

The Feanorian was walking with a book in hand, his lips pressed firmly together as if he was _tempted_ , unconsciously, to break into oration. He was not dressed in a student’s humble garb. Rather, it was a cold day in November, and he had a coat of Irish wool, in bold-checked plaid, and waxed gaiters over his shoes. If Master Simeon had not been like to kidnap him, he might have asked after his tailor.

But no, what could a humble tutor, only _aspiring_ to be a schoolmaster, pay for fresh winter clothes?

“Hello, sirrah,” he said, and the boy looked up from his book.

Or rather, he looked _down_ , for he was some six inches taller.

“Who are you, sir?”

Master Simeon drew himself up as high as he could. The Feanorian boy had grey eyes, wide and quite clear. Eyes like that would not be able to hide fear very well, if it was felt.

Unfortunately, the boy also had freckles over his nose. In November! That meant he had spent the summer in the sun. He might be agile. He might be cunning.

“A strange question to ask a superior,” he answered, trembling a little in anticipation. “What do you have there, sirrah?”

The boy’s eyebrows knitted together. “ _Macbeth_ ,” he said. “I am taking it to the library.”

“I shall see you again,” Master Simeon told him, in a voice hushed with authority, and only when the boy was gone did he wonder if he had said too much.

“You may not tutor Maedhros Feanorian,” said Master Webb severely, when Master Simeon inquired. “No one is permitted any instruction of that boy—or should I say, _man_ , for he is nearly eighteen—without the express approval of his father.” And at this Master Webb leaned forward, the light catching on his spectacles so that it appeared that they, as well as his eyes, glinted with indignation. “Have you _met_ his father, Mr. Simeon?”

 _Master_ Simeon had not.

“Then we shall say no more about it,” Master Webb decreed.

But oh, how he hungered for a more fruitful letter—and oh, how he also hungered for the sight of _fear_ in those sky-silver eyes.

“Will you dine with me?”

This was the question he asked when he next had a moment alone with the boy. The hour was growing late, and Master Simeon had crafted enough tasks for his usual pupils to carry home like weighty burdens. They would have hours of Latin to conjugate— _hours_.

“I am afraid I already have another engagement,” the Feanorian boy said. He had a satchel of books over his shoulder. He stood straight despite it.

“Another engagement? That would override the rights of a teacher?”

The boy did not smile. Gravely, he said, “You must excuse me.”

Master Simeon laughed. Oh, how he laughed. “What a thing to be young,” he said. “I know, I know, a handsome youth such as yourself—” And here he laid a hand on the lad’s arm.

He nearly lost his footing the next moment, for the Feanorian boy snatched his arm away as if Master Simeon’s touch burned.

“You will not,” said the boy, in a low, desperate, dangerous tone, “Speak to me again.”

Master Simeon began to feel that he had made a mistake. He opened his mouth, feeling fishlike, and found his tongue only when the boy’s footsteps echoed down the hall.

“We shall see about that!” he said, too loudly, and indeed, in that moment, he felt rather brave.

Yet, the next day, he was called to Master Webb’s office. Master Webb polished his spectacles, in great rudeness, as he informed Master Simeon that he was to find another place of work.

“Is this over that redheaded brat?” cried Master Simeon, and Master Webb looked thunderous.

“You will not, if you please, make me call for the porters.”

Master Simeon took himself home. He kicked at the cobbles.

That night, another black-sealed envelope arrived. It was a summons, this time, and Arthur Simeon paled to receive it.

His body was found in the Hudson a month later. It was deemed an unfortunate suicide, but little was known of him anyway.


	6. Sloth

_“If thou loiter when thou shouldst labour, thou wilt lose the crown.”  
― Richard Baxter_

There was a piano at Formenos that held no little right to Maglor’s heartstrings. Grandfather Finwe had commissioned some improvements to the one in his parlor, and Athair, in one of his unreadable moods, had gone beyond that to have one for Valinor Park made by a German craftsman who had, so it was said, known Beethoven.

Yet Maglor—guilty not only on _that_ account but also on account of his personal belief that grandeur merited much, in terms of beauty—had to shut his eyes and think of Formenos whenever he played.

Otherwise, the notes would not come out right.

They had returned to the city a week ago. He had scarcely been at home since. He was nineteen years old, and finished with the sort of schooling to which other boys had to submit; a musician’s work, of course, being never done.

The house echoed around him. He could not be grateful for the silence. He had sought noise of all kinds, since he set foot on Manhattan soil.

(Maglor could count on the fingers of one hand the fights between Athair and Maedhros that had risen to the panic of fire and flame.)

He shut the door behind him, shutting out the bustle of the streets. The maid came for his coat, but he was almost exasperated by her presence. He had spent more than half of his life laboring at barnyard chores. What need had he, for someone to take his coat?

He thanked her with a bad grace.

Where in seven hells was Maedhros? Maglor didn’t want to name the thing gnawing at his gut as _fear_ , but nor did he know what he would do if the house _stayed_ silent.

His shoes were heavy on the stairs. His fingers were sore from playing. There would be a grand recital in three weeks, and his usually restrained music-master had gleefully hinted that those who came would come foremost to hear Maglor Feanorian play.

 _Damn you, Maitimo_ , he thought, hollowly, all the way down the upper hall.

He pushed open the door of his brother’s bedchamber without knocking.

It was dark, within, and Maglor wrinkled his nose at the smell of unwashed bedclothes and stale sweat. _There_ was the shape of his brother in the bed, face-down, but Maglor would not permit himself a moment’s panic over its pose or stillness.

_He always appears like this, when he has been drinking. Do not give him the compliment of your worry. Do not give him the compliment of your worry, Maglor. Not this time. Not again._

(Maedhros had spoken no more than a dozen words to him, during the two days they traveled by carriage from Formenos to Valinor Park.)

Thus intent on his vengeance—so intent that his head ached and his eyes smarted—Maglor stepped through a heap of cast-off shirts and trousers, coming near to the head of the bed.

Ah. Maedhros still breathed. A younger Maglor would have felt—relief to see that. This Maglor felt _nothing_. Nothing at all.

“Maedhros,” he said, sharply and loudly. “It is two o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Hell,” Maedhros muttered, into his pillow. Maglor understood him; he understood all Maedhros’s mumblings. He was the only one who heard them.

“Get up,” Maglor said. “This room is disgusting.”

Maedhros did not lift his head. Maglor was rocked by white rage. When the rage receded, it left him feeling very small. He had to steady his voice as next spoke.

“Have you even eaten or drunk— _water_ , that is—since we returned?”

No answer.

“I would strip the blankets off you.” Maglor paused. “But I do not want to touch you. Honestly, Mai—Maedhros, if you would only tell me what he said to vex you so! You do not _have_ to wall yourself up here, writing letters that I am sure are lies, and leaving me out in the cold.” He balled his aching fists against his thighs. “And if letters were the worst of it, perhaps I would have no cause to complain. But this _vile_. You are swimming in your own sick, aren’t you? Or are you simply leaking poison from every pore?”

“At the moment,” said Maedhros, raising his head so that he could speak through the lank fall of his hair, “I am wishing you would leave me.”

Maglor’s eyes began to burn again. The injustice in it—in the hold a…a _derelict_ elder brother could have over the younger. He would make himself ill, bearing it and fighting it at once.

Maglor would _not_ live at war with himself.

“So you no longer care for _me_ ,” he said. “And perhaps if I called Fingon, you would feel differently, but _I_ have too much pride to intermingle our half-family in this disgraceful mess.”

“Don’t call Fingon.”

Maglor blinked rapidly. He ground his teeth. “What about that woman you’ve been seeing, eh? Shall I send a precious letter of my own to _her_?”

Maedhros forced himself up on his hands. He kicked off the blankets with more violence than Maglor expected him to be equal to, and rose on unsteady feet.

“Maitimo—”

“Leave me,” Maedhros said, deadly quiet. “Please.”

Maglor opened his mouth and shut it again. The discolored night-shirt, the matted hair, the ink-stained fingers…

“Should I send for a doctor?”

Maedhros took a step closer, then another. Then he seized Maglor by the shoulders, without looking him in the eyes, and steered him to the door.

The sound of it falling shut was worse than silence.

Maglor took refuge in his own room, and if he wept hot and angry tears over the music sheets that _ought_ to have held his attention for the remainder of the day, no one was the wiser.

The maid, when he asked at lonely suppertime, said that Master Feanorian had gone out for the evening.


	7. Wrath

_“Throw away thy rod, throw away thy wrath; O my God, take the gentle path.”_

_― George Herbert_

“What were you thinking?” Maedhros asked, almost as white as the handkerchief he was pressing against the corner of Fingon’s mouth. “Lord have mercy, Fingon. I—”

“I would rather not repeat it,” Fingon said, trying to still his trembling hands. His lip was tender and full. His jawbone sparked and throbbed with pain.

He had left his opponent worse off.

He—was not able, and might never be able, to forget what his opponent had _said_.

“I’ve known Lester for years,” Maedhros said. “Devil knows what got into him. Here, let’s get out of the street. I know a club—we’ll nip in round the back—”

Fingon had been trying to etch out the memory of Maedhros and gentleman’s clubs and the stench of brandy. He pursed his lips, which hurt.

“It’s nothing,” he said, stalling. He tried to speak as coldly as he could. Not to—to _hurt_ Maedhros, who had only begun to regain himself of late (if Fingon was being brutally honest), but to keep himself in check.

_Tell your filthy Irish cousin—_

“It isn’t nothing, _cano_. What am I to say to—to Grandfather Finwe, if his favorite grandson is pounding Whitehalls into their own street?”

“You’re his favorite grandson.”

Maedhros did not answer _that_. He drew Fingon down an abbreviated alley, where the cobblestones were tar-smeared and uneven, and rapped thrice on a plain grey door. It opened.

Five minutes later Fingon, who had failed to really protest, was besieged by the loathsome smell of brandy again, mingled with musty velvet and cigar smoke.

“A cup of ice chips, too, if you can,” said Maedhros to the waiter. “I’ll pay double—I know it’s beastly warm out.” He leaned across the table, with his gentlest smile, and proffered a fresh handkerchief between two of his long fingers. “I shan’t stop offering these until you tell me all about it.”

_Not content with laying off with whores—_

“If you don’t mind,” Fingon said, misliking _very_ much the tremble that had entered a voice which, at seventeen (eighteen, next month) should have grown beyond trembles, “I think I’d better not.”

 _Defend him, will you? Defend him as you wouldn’t if it was_ your _sister…_

Fingon knew lust. Of course, he didn’t _want_ to—he had been horrified to learn of it, and quite certain (at about twelve years of age) that it should never plague him. _That_ was when he wanted to be a priest. Gradually, though, the sin overcame him. He was distracted by the soft arch of a girl’s neck, or the flush in her cheeks—and this at Holy Mass!

He should not speak of it to anyone, save his confessor.

Nor should he be a priest.

His ambitions shattered (and his prowess with womankind no further developed), he regrouped. In days of old, knights had regrouped after defeats both large and small. Fingon and his soul had to do the same.

It wasn’t the sin he would have chosen for himself; not that one _ought_ to choose a sin at all. Sometimes, selfishly, he wished for pride as his vice…pride enough to spurn his father’s aid, or to trample Uncle Feanor down at a public gathering (as the mood took him).

Anger—well. Anger, he had always had with him.

Maedhros was fond of teasing him, and Fingon had let himself be teased. He had been a cantankerous child, he was sure. Then he was an awkward, unseemly youth, and now, just on the cusp of his profession, he wished he could carve out all of his _self_ and leave his intellect and skills only.

 _“Don’t you ever wish that you weren’t yourself?”_ he asked one day, when only Maedhros and Finrod were by.

Finrod had said, _“Of course,”_ and Maedhros had said,

 _“Everyone does, but I hope_ you _never do.”_

To be confronted outside Doctor Olorin’s rooms, by a boy he was sure he’d never seen in his life—a boy of nineteen or twenty who seemed intent on finding _Maedhros Feanorian, your filthy Irish cousin_ —

(Fingon had found his pride. His anger, he had always had with him.)

“He said,” he muttered, low and at last, “That you dishonored his sister.”

The smile on Maedhros’s face did not change. For just an instant, that made Fingon distrust it wholly.

“What an accusation!”

Fingon continued, levelly, “I could not let a lie like that stand.”

Maedhros poured him a glass of brandy. His eyes never left Fingon’s face. “It hurt you to hear that. Of me.”

“Of course it did.” Fingon winced; he was clenching his right fist, and in so doing, he realized that his knuckles were weeping blood. “You are not like common men, Maitimo. I—I hated to even think of you in such a light, even in passing. I hated to see you made ugly by someone else’s clumsiness or hatred, whichever it was, and—”

“And I hate to see you hurt,” Maedhros said, reaching for Fingon’s battered fingers. “ _Cano_ , you mustn’t ever fight for me. I hope you never do again.”

“Why not?” Fingon asked, breathless.

“Because,” Maedhros said, binding the latest handkerchief around the little wounds, “You were not made for anger.”


End file.
